The Rule of Mirrors by Caragh M. O'Brien Pages: 432
Published by Roaring Brook Press on February 16, 2016
Series: The Vault of Dreamers #2
Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Dystopian
Also in this series: The Vault of Dreamers, The Rule of Mirrors, The Keep of AgesThe fast-paced, psychologically thrilling sequel to The Vault of Dreamers follows Rosie after her consciousness has been split in two.
The entire country was watching when Rosie Sinclair was expelled from Forge, the prestigious arts school that doubles as a reality TV show. But few know how Dean Berg was mining students' dreams in laboratories deep below the school. And no one, least of all the Dean himself, knows that when Rosie's dreams were seeded into the mind of another patient, Rosie's consciousness woke up in that body--a girl far from Forge, a girl with a completely different life from Rosie, a girl who is pregnant.
Told from alternating points of view between Rosie as she makes sense of her new identity and the shattered subconscious that still exists in her old body, this sequel to The Vault of Dreamers will keep readers on the edge of their seats and leave them hungry for more.
I LOVED The Vault of Dreamers (you can check out my review of book 1 HERE) when I read it last year, and I have been anxiously awaiting the release of book 2- The Rule of Mirrors. My review of book 2 is coming up soon, but today I have author Caragh O’Brien here for a guest post!
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On Cliffhangers and Why We Love Them
by Caragh M. O’Brien
Our trusty character stumbles through the dark, stormy night, blinded by rain and struggling against the wind. Her cape whips about her but she presses on, desperate to escape the evil forces that chase behind her. All of the sudden, she loses her step and stumbles. She skids, flails, and barely catches herself on a ledge of rock. She’s clinging by her fingernails and scrambling for footing when a wild flash of lightning reveals a deep chasm beneath her. She screams in terror! She’s hanging on a cliff, suspended over a void of certain doom!
At this point, the author cuts away, and the reader squirms with the frustration of not knowing what happens next. It’s the classic cliffhanger, literally. A great cliffhanger insures that a reader will turn the page for the next chapter or wait impatiently for the next book in a series. A bad cliffhanger, however, one that’s too abrupt or arbitrary, will leave a reader feeling cheated and irritable. She’ll throw the book across the room and warn all her friends that the ending stinks.
As a reader, I love a good cliffhanger. When I reached the end of Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go, I wanted to kill the writer, and then a few minutes later, I felt deeply awed and satisfied. I like the sense of an author playing with my mind. It feels like I’ve entered a game, and a good cliffhanger reminds me that the author is carefully in control. It’s a promise for what’s to come, and I love that. I enjoy pondering and guessing what will happen next. I even like the not knowing. My anxiety is proof of how much I care about the characters, my friends.
As a writer, I like putting cliffhangers at the end of chapters. In fact, I normally don’t cut my chapter breaks until I have a full draft of my book, and then I go back and deliberately put the breaks in where a moment of drama is pivoting. The white space at the end of the chapter gives the reader just enough room to take a new deep breath before plunging on.
A cliffhanger at the end of a novel is more risky, and it has to actually add something to the book, not just set up the next one. Without getting into spoilers, I can say that The Vault of Dreamers ends with a cliffhanger. I tried for a rush of suspense and an unexpected turn, and yet the final scene is grounded in the characters and conflicts that pervaded the novel. Since the book is about art, it felt right to take a chance with a bizarre, even otherworldly situation. Did it work? I think so, and yet I must say, I feel better knowing the next book—The Rule of Mirrors—is out now, and readers can find out for themselves what happens next.
Still wondering about our heroine dangling from the cliff above? Just as she falls, a dragon soars up from below, and she scrambles onto its back and holds on for dear life. Whew! She’s okay. For now.
@CaraghMOBrien is at @BookBriefs today chatting Cliffhangers and why we love them for the #RuleofMirrors blog tour. Check it out! Click To Tweet
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About Caragh M. O’Brien
Caragh M. O’Brien is the author of the BIRTHMARKED trilogy and THE VAULT OF DREAMERS, both from Macmillan/Roaring Brook Press. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Ms. O’Brien was educated at Williams College and earned her MA from Johns Hopkins University. She recently resigned from teaching high school English in order to write young adult novels.
Cliffhangers: Risky and Fun - Caragh M. O'Brien | Young Adult Author
[…] of Mirrors Blog Tour is zipping along. Michelle invited me to talk a bit about cliffhangers over at Book Briefs, so I had a chance to think about why I like them: they’re risky and fun. I definitely took […]